@Diablo on Item Sockets, Armor Dyes, and HC Arena Looting

@Diablo coughed up some fishbones of news today, on various issues. Here are a few quotes on item-related issues.

Will we be able to socket our items with something other than gems? Jewels perhaps?—Ophion1There’s a potential for it, but as it stands now sockets have one item type that can be placed into them – gems.—Diablo

Will we be able to only dye certain areas of our armor (say… the cloth bits) or will the whole thing change colour?—snillum101Armor Dyes affect specifically designated sections of armor.—Diablo

will salvaging dyes also give rare materials as runes do, and can these rare materials craft rare unique or legendary items?—Sword9mmNo intent to allow salvaging of dyes. They don’t increase player power, so if you have too many you can feel safe vendoring them.—Diablo

what’s being done with the items from hc arena battles? Can the winners loot? Loot ur friends if ur last man standing?—Kru5h1

They’re sent directly to us so we can walk around claiming to be you while talking in a high, shrill voice.—Diablo

The issue of jewels (or anything besides gems to put into item sockets) in Diablo III has been a popular one in our forums of late; check out this thread if you want more debate on the issue. The consensus is that the devs want to establish the basic gameplay in Diablo III, and that we’ll see more socketables added in the expansions. (Which was how Diablo II did it, after all.)

The issue of HC Arena looting is a another one that’s been much debated (as have many other aspects of HC Arena play) in the mega PVP thread as well as elsewhere. The more basic question is about team play; namely will there be any? If everyone who dies, even once, is dead forever, then no. There won’t be any teams, since someone(s) on a team will die and that’s that. Well, the same people can team up again… you’ll just have to wait 6 weeks for your friend to level a new char back to 60. If the members of a whole team live, so long as anyone on their team lives, that would make team play really interesting, and incredibly intense. Very much a winning team take all, rather than a glorified FFA/every man for himself.

As for the item looting issue in the tweet, I take @Diablo’s sarcastic reply to mean that 1) they’ve not really given it any thought, 2) they don’t especially care since they’ve only considered HC at an abstract, conceptual level, or 3) they’re not ready to tell us about their plans yet, probably because 1 and 2 are both at least partially true. I’d be glad to have my cynicism proven wrong, though.